The Perfect Gift Page 24

  Jared rang off and pocketed the small phone. “New rules,” he said tersely. “All packages or deliveries go through me, Marston.”

  “Very good, Commander.”

  Jared touched the box carefully. “And I’m giving you both notice that from now on the phone lines will be monitored constantly, so if there’s something you’d rather not have overheard you’d better not say it. Marston, be sure to alert the Draycotts about this.”

  Maggie let out a breath. “I suppose there’s no other choice.”

  Jared studied the taped edge of the package. “An explosives team will be arriving from Hastings within the hour. Meanwhile, I’m taking this outside for a closer look.” Jared looked at the butler. “Marston, if anything happens, you’re to get Maggie out and Nicholas down here pronto. He’ll handle the next step.”

  “What do you mean?” Maggie started after him as he carried the box toward the front door. “You don’t really think that might be some kind of explosive.”

  He moved past her. “Don’t follow me, Maggie.”

  “But you’ll need tests and an X ray, won’t you?”

  “I have some equipment in the old conservatory.” He gave a dry laugh. “If that goes up, Nicholas would thank me.”

  “You can’t do this, Jared.”

  He turned, his gaze meeting hers squarely. “It’s what I’m paid to do, Maggie. It’s my job. This won’t be the first time.”

  If he’d meant to reassure her, he failed completely. Maggie envisioned him crouched by other packages, sweating as he listened for telltale clicking or the smell of chemical explosives.

  “Wait for help,” she whispered.

  “There’s no time. I have to determine if this is real or not. If it’s carrying a timer, we don’t have the luxury of a delay.” He gave Marston a hard look. “Both of you stay here. And keep Max inside. Is that understood?”

  Marston nodded. “Understood, Commander.”

  Maggie blinked at the sudden flood of sunlight through the open door. What if there was a bomb? What if she never saw him again? “Jared, I—”

  The door closed. She started after him, but Marston gripped her arm with surprising strength. “I’m afraid I cannot allow you to go out, Ms. Kincade, much as I would like to join you there.” He turned and appeared to be listening intently.

  There was only birdsong. Only a silence that was suddenly threatening.

  “Stubborn man,” Marston muttered. “Unfortunately he is right about this. It is his job and we must leave him to it,” he said grimly. “What we need now is a strong cup of Darjeeling laced with whisky—especially since I have a damned good view of the conservatory from the kitchen window. Are you coming?”

  Maggie nodded, shaken by the anger and worry in his eyes. She had no way of knowing that it was the first time the sober butler had broken form and cursed before a guest in twenty-six years of exacting service at the abbey.

  MARSTON PACED BEFORE THE OPEN WINDOW AS THE SECONDS crawled past.

  “He’s done this before?” Maggie asked tensely.

  “Many times. It was his specialty. Greece, Hong Kong, the Falklands.” He slanted another glance toward the conservatory. “And Thailand, of course.”

  “I can’t think about it.” Maggie cradled her teacup, barely noticing how the heat burned her palms. “Did any of the bombs go off?”

  “Once,” Marston said. “Only once.”

  The cup lurched. “What happened?”

  Marston continued to stare out at the old conservatory. “I believe you’d better ask Commander MacNeill.” Behind him the phone rang, shrill in the silence.

  After a brief hesitation, Marston raised the receiver. “Marston here.” He nodded slowly. “I’m afraid he is not available. Izzy, you say? Yes, I’ll tell him that you phoned. I’m sure he will be glad to know the work is finished.” Marston’s gaze wandered to the shadows at the far side of the moat. “When do I expect him? Soon, I hope. Very, very soon.”

  The butler hung up slowly. “That was the commander’s colleague. The phone work is complete. I don’t believe we’ve had listening devices here since 1990, when the queen—” He drummed his fingers against the glass.

  “Marston?” Maggie swallowed. “What if he…” She couldn’t finish.

  “No one will the here at the abbey while I’m on duty.” He strode to a high cabinet and pulled open a narrow drawer, his expression resolute as he removed a small automatic pistol and slid a clip into place. “I would appreciate it if you stayed here and watched the conservatory, Ms. Kincade. I believe I will make a round of the house.” His jaw hardened. “Just in case.”

  Beyond the moat and the Witch’s Pool sunlight curled around a holly hedge. Without warning the wind dropped and clouds slid before the sun, shadowing the lawns.

  A voice boomed out of the shadows. “Just let me have the blackguard within my reach. I’ll teach him to intrude!” A hint of white lace slid into view, followed by shoulders draped in black satin. “The utter audacity to bring an object of harm here to my abbey. I won’t have it, by heaven!”

  At his feet the holly stirred, and a gray form ghosted into view. The great cat jumped to the stone bridge and meowed.

  “Where, Gideon? In a truck just leaving the estate?”

  The cat’s tail flicked side to side.

  “Too late?” Adrian Draycott spun about, staring to the south where the gravel drive twisted away, lost in a row of oak trees. “I’ll set a bolt of lightning on the bounder if he sets foot on abbey soil ever again.”

  The cat’s ears pricked forward, suddenly alert.

  “He’s going to open the box? The bloody fool. Expert or not, Commander MacNeill will require our help.” Adrian rubbed a spectral hand across his jaw. “Thank the saints that the viscount and his family are nowhere about.”

  A mass of holly flew down in a rain of dark leaves as he swung about. “Trouble, always trouble,” he muttered. “A pack of fools, these mortals be.”

  The lace at his cuffs fluttered, then melted into the stone wall, followed an instant later by the length of Adrian’s tall form. “Are you coming, Gideon?” The words boomed from empty space. “I will need your help, my friend.”

  In answer the cat took a delicate leap across the stone bridge, then raced over the lawn toward the old conservatory.

  Jared touched the heavy paper carefully.

  He had dealt with explosives often in Europe and the Middle East, places where schoolchildren grew up familiar with names like Semtex and C-4. Over long months of duty he had developed the distance and objectivity to confront each assignment as if it were a simple exercise with no effect on the safety of himself or others.

  But now, sweating amid the ferns in the abbey’s conservatory, Jared found his objectivity fraying.

  He had already called in full backup, of course. A municipal security team would bring metal containers to house the package until the firing mechanism could be disrupted and the device detonated harmlessly. Meanwhile, Jared had constructed a makeshift barrier of heavy iron lawn furniture and two solid metal gardening tables.

  Not foolproof, but it was a start.

  The waiting turned into a torment. With every brush of his fingers on the box he felt the sullen link tighten. The slightest touch brought an onslaught of cold emotion, marking state of mind of whoever had wrapped and delivered the box.

  The courier service named on the box did not exist, Jared sensed. Lion Express would appear on no corporate index or directory, in spite of Izzy’s relentless searching, and Jared refused to sit by and wait for disaster to strike.

  Gently he slid a specially adapted stethoscope against the nondescript brown wrapper.

  Silence.

  Patiently he tried every inch, and each time he was met with utter stillness. The mechanism might be digital, triggered by silicon chips and microcircuits. It could also be chemically or magnetically triggered, the sort of thing that was increasingly popular in the Far East.

  Jared lifte
d a black metal box with a long probe and ran the boom carefully over the brown paper, listening for an electronic hum or a burst of static indicating the presence of a wireless transmitter that could trigger a detonation from a distance. Each pass came up clear.

  So far the box was clean, yet Jared’s senses were screaming. Both experience and his singular intuition warned of close risk. His first priority was safety, and that meant taking no chances. The basic rule of explosives was to presume detonation capability until proven otherwise. He struggled for controlled objectivity, trying to forget that in one second the conservatory and a sizeable section of the abbey could be turned into flying debris.

  Sweat dotted his forehead as he sprayed the top of the box and watched the paper glisten, then turn translucent. There was no trace of the oily stains that chemical explosives might leave. There was no network of wires or structural tubing visible beneath the paper.

  Whoever had sent this package was playing with them, making this some hellish test. Jared opened and closed his fingers, fighting to stay calm, though any second could bring a deafening blast and an acrid wall of smoke as circuits and wires clicked to their deadly purpose.

  With a silent curse he called up habits learned over years of exacting training. Forget everything but technique. Use your eyes and ears as if your life depends on them because it bloody well does. He almost smiled at the memory of the barrel-chested demolitions instructor from Leeds who had cursed and goaded him through his first year of specialized training.

  And don’t bloody well forget to breathe.

  He forced a stream of air into his lungs and studied the box.

  Not heavy, but that meant nothing. These days detonators could weigh less than five pounds and triggers even less.

  No indication of motion or sound. Again, equally inconclusive.

  What he needed was a topflight CAT scanner and an X-ray machine, along with the newest disruptive devices, but he had none of them.

  What he did have was his singular gift.

  Summoning all his energy he focused deep, past the brown paper, past the scrawled lettering and the cardboard. Tightening his concentration, he probed the heart of the box.

  The contact shimmered, and images churned into his head. Lonely seacoast. The muted sound of a foghorn. Scrub pines bunched along a place of utter isolation.

  Jared shifted, driving his focus deeper into the cold cardboard and rough paper. There he found anger, cunning, and the premeditation of a keen mind, but no active bomb that he could sense. Fear, not death, was the sender’s intent. Fear was meant to grow, feeding on itself, until Jared and Maggie watched empty corners and jousted with terrifying shadows of their own invention.

  While a stranger laughed. And waited.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Jared saw something move beyond a dwarf orange tree dotted with white blossoms. He was reaching for his Browning Hi-Power pistol when a gray shape ghosted through a row of ferns and brushed against his ankle.

  “This is no place for you, my friend. You’d best be gone.”

  The cat’s tail flicked once. He jumped onto a broad oak table jammed with ceramic pots and watering cans.

  Jared scowled. “Go on, blast it. Out with you. This is no time for showmanship, damn it.” Jared felt his blood freeze as the gray body shot forward, dislodging a watering can. With nightmare clarity, he saw the heavy pewter topple toward the box on the table.

  He dove headfirst. Brackish water sprayed over him, soaking the box. Every muscle tensed as he struck the floor and waited for the deafening crack that would be the last thing he would ever hear.

  As water dripped over the paper, the box seemed to deteriorate, collapsing inward with a liquid hiss. Jared rose, grabbed the cat, and leaped beyond the protective barrier.

  There was no deafening explosion. Water trickled down his cheeks and hands, the only sound in the room. Then the cat gave a low cry and squirmed free of Jared’s fingers.

  In one leap he was on top of the box, which crumpled to a damp shell.

  “Someone very special must be watching over you,” Jared said softly as he pushed himself to his feet, feeling an almost painful awareness of everything around him, from the exquisite lace of a foxtail fern to a dust mote that danced through the thick sunlight. The scent of orange biossoms and the rich smell of potting soil filled his lungs, making him feel almost giddy. It was over, he realized. Something had changed. Perhaps the water had offset some delicate balance inside the box.

  He tugged at the wet paper, assailed by a pungent, bittersweet scent as he tore away the last fold. All that was left inside were long streaks mounded against the cardboard, interlaced in perfect squares.

  Jared stared. He had seen lines like those before. The embassy bombing in Greece? The attack on a British school in Malaysia?

  The image eluded him.

  He sniffed the drying white squares. Crystals of some sort. Sugar, Jared realized. But why?

  The cat pressed closer, inquisitive and unafraid. Jared ran a hand over the sleek fur while he studied the patterns in the crumpled paper. Could they possibly be simple circuits made of sugar mixed with some organic, conductive material? Or was he dealing with a biohazard hidden in that innocuous sugar?

  Jared knelt by the box, feeling no further sense of threat. The paper was cold, inert beneath his fingers. “Somehow I think this was all meant to manipulate us. This madman has a timecard filled out, and he’s watching us squirm. He’s careful and I suspect he’s also deranged.”

  The cat swatted the box disdainfully, then hissed as a pool of melted sugar ran toward his foot.

  “Watch that.” Jared pulled the cat away from the box. “No telling what’s mixed with that sugar without a complete set of tests.”

  The cat stepped delicately across the stream of melted sugar, then turned to look at Jared.

  The pattern on the brown paper drifted in and out of Jared’s vision, a puzzle that should have carried meaning. There was no doubt that he’d seen those careful squares before.

  Hong Kong, he realized. Six years earlier, when the explosive device of a criminal Triad group was confiscated following a string of bomb threats in public buildings. Was the same madman at work here?

  Jared thought not. This was personal, a message of power and a declaration of ultimate knowledge of Jared’s past, just as the Middle Earth address was to show knowledge of Maggie’s family and where she could be hurt most.

  Jared swore grimly. He watched water trickle down the sodden box, streaking the address until the black letters blurred. Nothing had been a coincidence, and nothing that had happened so far could be dismissed lightly.

  He stared at the blurred address, seeing parts of letters and lines.

  Lion Express. The box’s message finally clicked into place.

  Daniel Kincade. Daniel…in the lion’s den.

  I’m here for Daniel Kincade, the box was meant to say. I’m here and I’m waiting.

  MAGGIE PACED BESIDE THE HEAVY LEADED WINDOWS. There was no movement in the conservatory or beyond the trees. The moat rippled and the roses swayed, but there was no sign of Jared.

  Her hand tightened on the sill. She tried not to think of him crouching by the box, testing for the presence of explosives, tensed for a blast.

  Her fault. Hers and her father’s.

  Tears pricked at her eyes, and she rubbed them away angrily. The game had gone on long enough. She refused to allow any more danger to the innocent people around her. She would leave tomorrow. Back in the States, she could track down some of her father’s old friends and…

  And what?

  Maggie took a hard breath as something nudged her hand. She looked down to see the gray cat padding delicately over the windowsill. His keen amber eyes burned, full of a restless intelligence.

  “What am I going to do?” she whispered. “I’ve brought this danger to all of them.”

  The cat’s tail arched with feline grace. He sat on the sill, staring down toward the conservatory
almost as if he could read the course of her thoughts.

  “Ridiculous,” Maggie whispered. “Ghosts don’t drift out of old paintings and cats don’t pull thoughts out of people’s minds. Not even very clever cats like you.”

  The gray ears pricked forward. He pushed to all fours, meowing loudly.

  Against all logic or sense, Maggie leaned closer. “What is it?”

  The great animal did not move, body tense, ears erect.

  A board creaked, and she spun around, her fingers locked around a heavy crystal decanter. Marston should have returned, but there had been no sign of him, and she was taking no chances. “Who’s there? Come out now,” she rasped.

  Wind brushed her face, and the curtains rippled in a sudden current. Maggie had the sense that she was being watched.

  Nerves, she told herself. Too much imagination. Suddenly voices boomed along the front stairs. Maggie followed the sound, crossing the broad marble foyer. Through the open door to the front salon she saw Jared with one arm braced on a marble mantel, his body rigid. Across the room a man in a black vest and military fatigues paced with an arrogance that was nearly palpable. A hydrogen bomb wouldn’t have drawn their attention from what appeared to be an old and familiar argument.

  “Still fouling up, are you, MacNeill? What’s the body count this time? Or have you stopped keeping score?”

  Jared’s fingers tightened on the gray stone. “What are you doing here, Cox? I specifically requested you not be assigned to this call.”

  The man in black drove a gloved finger against Jared’s chest. “There was no one else. And you know I’m still the best.”